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My brother works with all manner of plastic machinery at his business... once in awhile something like this happens.

He's got a Sir John-like repair-shop across town that he's told stories about. Took them in an extrusion-screw that had a section of one of the flights ripped clean off to the root about three inches long.

Repair shop built a new flight out of weld, profiled it to match the rest of the screw and plated it in less time than it took for them to pull the machine apart.

From what I understand this quick repair allowed them to continue the production run while a proper replacement screw was acquired from the machine builder.

Myself, I had to use a similar "handyman/blacksmith/repair-artist" to rebuild the arm on one of my Nickolus Grinders recently. Took the broken part in, left it with him... drove back to my shop had an email "done." Turned around drove back handed him payment plus.

People who can do this stuff with this kind of turnaround are IMHO worth the price.

"The Administration does not support blowing up planets." --- Finally some SENSIBLE policy from the Gov!

Clumsy or not ,this build up technique amazes me every time.Wow it seems so simple I really should never try it myself, as I only do complicated simple stuff.
You know it's simple enough but by the time I get me big mits on it it becomes seriously complicated half way through Alistair

I imagine the firm that came round paid a fair bit more than that, given that I know who it is and theyre a rather large well known name. You could have stuck two possibly three digits on the end of that figure and they woudln't have flinched
There is only one manufacturer of subsea cables in the UK now, after BT flogged them all the gear when some BT CEO decided that there was no money in actually making things any more. They sold off all their lathes and toolroom kit, concreted over the 3m long surface plate used to align satelite lnb innars to arc seconds etc etc.

Amusingly now, they sell cables back to BT and made more profit in the first year of doing so than they paid for the kit

Might have been in the hydraulic test tank zone also, they make a cable, then put it under 200 bar of pressure to simulate the subsea pressures to test the cables are good after manufacture. I believe theres a close fitting lid on the tank which moves down to generate this. When I say tank, the one I saw was 80m long or so

What I'd have thought would take the time was finding the centre of the extension. It doesn't look like there was enough of the old shaft left to use a fixed steady to get the armature running true. It looks like it would be set a centre, mount, measure off, recut centre, repeat.

Unless, turn it round, put extension in 4-jaw, dial off armature. Yes, that would work. You'd just lose the little bit in the 4-jaw.

If lucas ever had enough electric to run a MiG welder their lights would never have flickered.

That MiG is a BOC actually but also have Murex, Esab and Camarc MiG's. Each welder carries a certain wire, save time never having to swap out wire, just choose the welder needed.

Sounds posh but you can pick older 3 phase MiG's up in the 300 amp range for peanuts, soon pays back in time.

Answers to a couple of questions in no order.

On armatures you have to be careful as regards heat, this one was Ok in that there wasn't much weld for the size of the job, shaft was 60mm diameter.

On smaller ones you often have to weld, allow it to cool and do some more welding. Never quench unless you are absolutely forced to as it raises al sorts of problems like hard sport, bending badly etc.

As regards picking the centre up there was just enough on the armature outboard of the knurl for the fan to get a steady on that has very slim bearings on the ends of the fingers.

I have something like 7 steadies of different types between two lathes and often pick the steady / machine to suit the job.

Never seen a steady that will do everything, the ones supplied are just generic make do's.

Local firm to me make big electrical cables, under sea stuff.
Everything in this place is big.

So they have this machine that melts and extrudes plastic to cover the cables, once started it's a process that can't be stopped.

So yesterday morning they had problems with the machine, not sure what, but two fitters went up on the gantry and managed to get it going again but as they were tidying up one of them kicked a spare part off the gantry into the drive of the machine.

Clumsy bastard.

Result was the drive locked up and it sheared the key on the 60 HP DC drive motor.

They pulled the motor and this dropped out.

Not only did it wipe the key off level with the shaft it ripped the end completely off. Panic................

This pic was taken as soon as the armature hit the deck, timed at 12.00 on the camera.

One hour later at 12:56 it's been bored 5" deep and a stub shaft pressed in and the undercut transition between the two welded up.

Grab a swift bite whilst the weld dries and back into the lathe.

Last pic timed at 14:24 and just needs the keyway belting in but the guys have already been rung and on on their way.